Tragic details of drowning revealed

Peter Foley
Senior Reporter
Raised in Ipswich, I have been a reporter at The Queensland Times since 2002. I cover general news. For quite a few years I was responsible for the police round. My round now is local government. I also love covering horse racing when I can sneak out of the office.

HEART-breaking details have been revealed about the six-year-old boy who drowned in a dam while visiting a 10-year-old mate.

The boy's body was pulled from the dam by police about five hours after he fell in on Tuesday afternoon.

Laidley's Senior Sergeant Jim McDonald said the boy's family and the owners of the property on Atkinson Dam Rd, Churchable were friends.

"The six-year-old's parents dropped him off and the parents of the 10-year-old were home," Snr Sgt McDonald said.

At some stage during the visit, the boys went out to the dam while the 10-year-old's parents stayed inside.

"The dam is about 40m by 30m and is lined with black plastic with fabric at one end to get out," Snr Sgt McDonald said.

"They fell in and the 10-year-old was able to get onto the fabric and get out and raise the alarm.

"The family of the six-year-old arrived back about the same time.

"They all went to try and find him, but of course the dam was like a pea soup by then."

The boy went missing about 4pm, 000 was called and ambulance, police and SES arrived and continued the search. Police divers were on scene about 4.45pm. They found the boy's body about 9pm.

Drowning prevention campaigner Katherine Plint called for support for the two families as criticism of them emerged on social media.

Mrs Plint and her husband Andrew set up Hannah's Foundation in the name of their two-year-old daughter who drowned at their Laidley home in 2007.

"A lot of people out there think they are perfect parents and this won't happen to them," she said.

"At the end of the day we have a family that is distraught, we have a family that had the child on their property as a visitor distraught; we need everyone to work together as a community to support the families and the diatribe that's on social media is an absolute bloody disgrace."

Mrs and Mr Plint were yesterday on holiday trying to celebrate Hannah's birthday. She would have been nine on Tuesday.

"We've lost a little boy and the community needs to rally around and we need to learn from this to prevent it happening again," she said.

"The messages are: When you're near an inland waterway, wear a life jacket and there must be constant supervision.

"We need to sit kids down and tell them how important these messages are.

"I can't stress enough that we need to have people realise that kids are so vulnerable around water.